A Canadian farmer, noted for his absent-mindedness, went to town
one day and transacted his business with the utmost precision.
He started on his way home, however, with the firm conviction
that he had forgotten something, but what it was he could
not recall. As he neared home, the conviction increased, and
three times he stopt his horse and went carefully through his
pocketbook in a vain endeavor to discover what he had forgotten.
In due course he reached home and was met by his daughter, who
looked at him in surprize and exclaimed, “Why, father, where
have you left mother?”--_Leslie’s Weekly._
(6)
* * * * *
There are many firm believers in the theory that most people are crazy
at times, and facts seem to support their belief. The following will
possibly remind a number of our readers of some incident in their
experience, which at the time of its occurrence seemed to them most
unaccountable:
A wise man will step backward off a porch or into a mud-puddle,
a great philosopher will hunt for the spectacles that are in his
hand or on his forehead, a hunter will sometimes shoot himself
or his dog. A working girl had been feeding a great clothing
knife for ten years. One day she watched the knife come down
slowly upon her hand. Too late she woke out of her stupor with
one hand gone. For a few seconds her mind had failed, and she
sat by her machine a temporary lunatic and had watched the knife
approach her own hand. A distinguished professor was teaching
near a canal. Walking along one evening in summer, he walked as
deliberately into the canal as he had been walking along the
path a second before. He was brought to his senses by the water
and mud and the absurdity of the situation. He had on a new suit
of clothes and a new silk hat, but, tho the damage was thus
great, he still laughs over the adventure. Our mail collectors
find in the iron boxes along the streets all sorts of papers and
articles which have been put in by some hand from whose motions
the mind has become detached for a second. A glove, a pair of
spectacles, a deed, a mortgage, a theater ticket, goes in, and
on goes the person, holding on to the regular letter which
should have been deposited. This is called absent-mindedness,
but it is a brief lunacy.--_Public Opinion._
(7)
=Absentees=--See EXCUSES.
=Absolution=--See FORGIVENESS, CONDITIONS OF.